


Lab Entries from the Northsoutheastwestern Ornithological Society of Konoha

by xx_bittersweet_merlin



Series: founders era [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Birds, Birds of Prey - freeform, Developing Friendships, F/F, Gen, M/M, Multi, No Lesbians Die, References to Depression, mito and madara centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-19 02:25:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15500271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xx_bittersweet_merlin/pseuds/xx_bittersweet_merlin
Summary: Madara runs into a strange woman in the woods who "saves" him from a bandit (and won't shut up about it after). But the friendship he makes with her- and the people she drags along for the ride- does end up saving him, in more ways than one. He never would have seen himself a few months ago sitting in a treehouse surrounded by women yammering on about which songbirds sounded the prettiest and obsessing over his feather and moth collections. It's nice to have people on his side- although sometimes his side is "Senju Hashirama is absolutely not allowed to have hair that pretty."





	1. a real hoot

“Take it easy.”

He kept his hands out, wishing he’d brought his long gloves, and tried to make no sudden movements as he slowly crept forward. The youngling on the ground across from him gave him a pointedly offended look, puffing up even further and shuffling her wings as best she could with one of them still caught in some sort of wire.

“It’s all right,” he crooned, watching the skin of her neck twitch as she stared at him. Some of the fuzz there looked to have been torn off, probably during her inevitable downward spiral through the treetops overhead after she’d gotten caught in whatever mess was tangled around her wing. “That isn’t so bad, is it?”

He reached out and smoothed a hand over her head. The owl fledgling stared at him, blinking a few times, and relaxed as he stroked her, nuzzling into his bare hand. He lifted the poor thing from the ground- she hardly weighed anything at all, and she still looked as though she was simply made of fuzz. There was a very light tan mottled around her wings and face area thought he bulk of her was white.

“A little barn owl, hm,” he murmured, lifting her into the crook of his arm so he could work the wire free. He should have picked up at least some kunai, he figured, but it was early morning, and he’d only thought to bring his binoculars on his walk.

The owl let out an unhappy noise when the wire fell to the ground. He examined her with a sigh. “I don’t think I can leave you, little one. It looks broken. I don’t suppose your mother is around?”

The owl cranked its head back and stared at him blankly, as if to answer his question. He sighed again and stood.

A faint rumbling caught his attention. He turned towards the noise, trying to place where he’d heard it before, frowning when it became louder and louder until it sounded as if it was upon him. He startled when a large form burst through the underbrush, nearly sailing right into him, and threw himself back without regard as he wrapped both arms around the fledgling so she wouldn’t be dislodged.

He landed hard on his ass in the leaves and winced at the unhappy coo the owl let out. Irritated, he glanced up at the horse that had come careening through the trees and was whirling around to face him, particularly at the man holding the reins.

He didn’t look very memorable, save for the odd C-shaped scar over his eye, and looked more like a run of the mill inexpensive mercenary or bandit in a few pieces of cheap, random armor and worn clothes. He did have a sword, to be fair, which most bandits struggled to find, but he still wasn’t very intimidating.

“All right, friend, hand over whatever you’ve got on you and I’ll forget I saw you,” the man said, pointing the sword at him as if it was threatening. It was starting to rust, and looked like it hadn’t been attended to in years, and it probably would have looked silly even if Madara could eviscerate him and the horse whole with burning ash.

The owl stared at the man with him, looking equally unimpressed, and it made his eye start to twitch.

“Did you hear me?” he demanded, guiding the horse a step closer and jabbing the blade in some weird ordering motion. “Hand over whatever money you’ve got-”

“Hey!” Yet _another_ interruption to his peaceful morning burst through the underbrush, brandishing a long staff with countless suspicious stains on it. This time it was a woman in muted grey trousers and a tunic, with, for some reason, a long bunch of brown fabric tied over her hair. “Stop right there!”

“You stay out of this, witch!” the man shot back, pointing the badly-kept sword at her instead.

“You leave that poor man alone!”

Madara gave them both an incredulous stare. “Poor man?” he asked, offended- did neither of them know who he _was?_ \- but they both ignored him. The owl in his arms hooted angrily.

“I’ve warned you twice, get in my way and your head’s coming off!”

“ _Something_ will be coming off,” the woman muttered darkly, then violently lunged herself across the clearing and into the air with a growl. She swung the staff and knocked the sword clean into a tree before tackling the man off the horse, taking him to the ground and drawing a pained shout from his lips, rolling easily to her feet and starting to beat him with the rod.

He tried to fight back, obviously, but it was comically apparent he was outmatched. She was, in simple terms, beating the piss out of him, and he finally turned to flee when a hard strike left his nose gushing with blood. She chased him towards the tree line, smacking his ankles and neck, yelling at him as he went even though Madara was sure she probably could have caught him considering she had apparently chased a horse. “This is your last chance! Stop coming around here!”

The man disappeared through the trees, leaving a streak of blood on the ground in his wake, while the horse stood there crunching on an apple from a nearby tree.

The woman stood there glaring in the bandit’s direction for a few moments before seeming to remember him and turning around. “Are you all right?” she asked, clearly concerned, as she hurried towards him.

Madara raised an eyebrow. He’d felt no real need to get up or move, or help, or do much of anything, and he was still a bit offended he was presumed to be some helpless waif. From his position, they were the ones who seemed to have lost a few marbles. “I don’t think I’m the one that question applies to.”

The woman stopped in front of him, rested her hands on her hips, and cocked an eyebrow in away that painfully resembled Izuna. The briefest reminder was all it took to make a frown grace his lips.

“You didn’t hit your head, did you?”

He could see her examining him- particularly his hands and arms, but she would find no scars or callouses there that indicated anything. Most of his scars lay hidden on his body where they’d been struck under cover of night. “I’m perfectly all right,” he drawled, leaning forward and shuffling to his feet. The owl hunkered down in his arms a bit, but stayed quiet, more unsettled than he. “I am a shinobi, after all.”

The woman paused. She was thinking, apparent in her eyes as they traveled through a few short, veiled expressions. “Are you from that settlement near here?”

Madara paused. He hadn’t gotten that far out from Konohagakure, had he? He knew he’d gone deep into the forest on his walk, but surely he hadn’t become so distracted. “Settlement?”

The woman pointed her staff over her shoulder. “About twenty miles to the west. I heard that the Senju and Uchiha had started a village there.”

Madara mentally grimaced. All right, so he had gotten distracted. The woman was squinting at him, in an evaluating sort of way, and he wouldn’t be surprised is he pegged him for an Uchiha.

“Konohagakure,” he supplied.

A smile bloomed across her face. “The Village Hidden in the Leaves? What a nice name. It’s very relaxing.”

Heat rushed to his face. He preened, just a little, at the fact that at least _someone_ could appreciate his name choice. “Thank you,” he replied, trying not to look too airy. “I’m the one who named it.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Uchiha Madara,” he said. “I would offer my hand to shake, but…” He held up the fledgling a few inches.

Something unreadable passed across her expression. “Oh, well,” she went on, managing to control the surprise he could see on her face well. “I wasn’t expecting to meet a founder out here. What…were you doing, exactly?”

She looked him up and down, with only her eyes, and he could feel the urge to flush coming upon him again. He’d left the house in his robe and leisure sandals, wearing nothing but his underwear underneath, and he must have looked a mess sitting in the grass. “I was taking a walk. Nothing of grand importance.”

She smiled at him with a note of teasing. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Madara-san. Uesugi Miu, at your service. I would say you obviously don’t need it, but, well, you did fall on your backside a minute ago.”

Madara’s face felt as if it was turning into a balloon full of hot air. He knew he was turning pink, now, because his ears felt flushed. “I did that on purpose,” he cried, making her smile grow into a grin.

“Of course you did. A skilled shinobi such as yourself would never trip and fall on his ass, would he?”

“I was keeping the fledgling from getting hit by that damned horse’s hooves-”

“Of course, of course. I believe you!”

He stared at her innocent smile, twitching, suddenly understanding why the man from before had called her a witch. Only a witch could irritate someone this much.

Miu’s gaze drifted to the owl in his grasp. She tilted her head with a sudden shift to curiosity, losing her joking tone. “What’s the matter with it?”

“Her wing is broken,” Madara muttered, starting to stroke the bird’s head again. She nuzzled into his hand, apparently attached to him by now, and he supposed one more addition to his aviary couldn’t hurt. “Someone set up some inane trap somewhere near here. I’ll have to take her home.”

“Oh. That’s…very good of you.” She looked mildly surprised, and he knew it shouldn’t have, but it stung, because people always seemed to be just a bit surprised whenever he showed tenderness to anything. She looked at his face and her expression changed. “Not that I think it’s strange, of course, we just met. It’s just been very long since I met a shinobi who stops long enough for baby animals.”

She smiled disarmingly at him. Some of the defensiveness drifted out of his gut as he nodded. “I should probably take her back now,” he murmured. “If you’re interested in the village, you’re, uhh- welcome.”

He should’ve been more eloquent, he knew, offered a branch to someone looking for a place to call home and country, as Hashirama would have done, but it came out more awkward than intended.

She pointed at the horse over her shoulder with her thumb. “I might drop by sometime. Right now, I have to take him back to Ohira.” He internally winced again, because if they were near Ohira, that meant he’d _really_ gotten distracted if he’d drifted close to that tiny little town that was basically just three farmers and a fisherman. “Have a good day, Madara-san.”

She drifted to the side a bit, as if in the process of turning around, hesitating for just a moment, so he cleared his throat, averting his eyes. “Just Madara is fine. Good day.”

“Of course. Good day.”

She finally stopped staring at him and turned around, hurrying over to the horse and clambering onto it. It huffed at being forced to leave the apple tree, but followed her command to turn around and start back the way it had come regardless.

Madara stood there for a moment staring after her, strange woman as she was, wishing he was a bit more persuasive and on the ball at the moment- maybe he should have said something else. It just felt a bit like- talking to Hashirama, slightly, as if she really thought him friendly. That was a nice feeling, he supposed. He really hadn’t made many friends since he had settled down.

The owl hooted. He glanced down at her and grumbled to himself, staring his walk back to the village and feeling irritated at his silly line of thought. “I guess I have to name you. How do you like Harumi? Well? What, don’t look at me like that- I thought you might like something pretty. I’ll think of something different.”


	2. don't want to be owl by myself

_Why don’t you take a break?_

Madara gritted his teeth. He tried to ignore the words, how they stung, how they rang with the fact that Hashirama must not have trusted him to work with the others. He’d gotten angry, irritated, and Hashirama had- had basically just sent him away before their next meeting, and that meant he didn’t trust him.

He couldn’t even be angry. Not at Hashirama. Here he was, trying his best, and he probably saw Madara as just…a burden. It was probably subconscious; he probably thought he was just doing what was best, but it hurt.

_I just want him to…_

A quiet, shuddering sound ahead of him caught his attention. He paused on the path, still holding the bag of bird seed he’d stopped by his house to pick up with an iron grip, and scanned the clearings and patches of grass on either side of the road shadowed by the trees.

He had to move forward a few yards, but he eventually spotted a form hunched over on the ground, someone sitting cross-legged with something cradled in their lap. They were crying, he realized, stepping off the path towards them in concern, instinct he hadn’t used in a long while triggered by the sobbing.

“And then we can play fetch,” the woman on the ground sniffled, petting what looked like a very still little collared dove in her lap. “And I can bring some orange slices, since you liked them so much. I mean- if, if they have orange slices, up there, you know?”

Madara felt acutely as if he was intruding on something he shouldn’t be, but he couldn’t just leave the woman there to weep in the middle of the woods. “Ma’am?” he asked, wincing when she startled.

She looked up at him with bleary, puffy eyes, nose red, and hurriedly wiped at her face with her sleeve. “Did you need, need something?” she stammered, still half-crying, squinting to see him correctly. “Sir?”

“No, I just- I heard you, uh- well. Did something…happen to your bird?” Madara continued on awkwardly, slowly easing his bag of seed down to the grass. She glanced at the bird in her lap and bit her wobbling lip.

“Oh. It’s just, my dove, I’ve had him for a while, and Masayoshi was getting…really old, and… I wanted to promise him I would come see him someday. I know it’s really silly, but-” She had been starting to dry up, but the admission made her eyes well up with tears again that she quickly raised her sleeve to hide. “I-I just wanted to make sure, you know?”

“It’s not a silly thing,” Madara told her, gently, reminded of when Tatsuya had sobbed for over two hours when his first little pigeon hadn’t made it through the winter. He set himself down in the grass and folded his legs. “When my first pigeon died, I wanted to give him a funeral with full burial rites so his soul wouldn’t get lost on its way to the pure land.”

It was a little embarrassing to admit his thought processes as a child, but it made her start to stop sniffling, still wiping at her face as she glanced up at him. “Really?”

Madara summoned a slightly lackluster smile for her. “It’s never been less upsetting when one of my birds dies. I find it’s easier to just keep getting more to distract myself.”

“Oh really? How…how many do you have?” She wiped away the last of her current batch of tears, leaving her cheeks still damp in places, looking at him with a wondrous sense of curiosity he’d last seen in Izuna’s eyes when Madara unveiled the goshawk he’d summoned for his birthday.

“Hmm.” He glanced aside to the forest ahead of them, taking a moment to think. “I believe I have ten pigeons right now, not including my other birds. Not enough, don’t you agree?”

The woman let out a weak chuckle. She carefully moved the bird to the ground just in front of her, using both sleeves to clean up her face. Fortunately she didn’t seem to be wearing any makeup. “I…I’ve never had more than Masayoshi. I don’t- I don’t know if I should get more now. I don’t want him to think I’m replacing him, you know?”

“Well, I don’t think he would want you to be unhappy. Who is he going to trust to carry your messages in his place?”

The woman smiled a weak, watery smile. She leaned forward and gently placed the body into a small hole she’d dug with a garden spade in front of her, absentmindedly staring at it as she spoke. “I guess I have always liked those- those green ones, with the dark wings that are always visiting the garden.”

“A whistling green dove. They usually inhabit more tropical areas, but there seems to be some amount that’s decided they like the village. Have you seen the wood pigeons? They’re quite large- very metallic-looking.”

She smiled as she stared at her unmoving dove. Slowly, it fell from her face, and she stared at the spade in her hand as she twirled it.

“I always keep a feather from mine,” he suggested, after a pause. “Put them in a book, so I don’t forget.”

She glanced up at him and back at the bird. After a moment of scrubbing at her eyes again, she reached into the grave and plucked two of the longest feathers from the bird, holding one out to him with a mildly anxious look on her face. “Can you remember Masayoshi too?”

“Of course I can,” he told her, hushed, and took it gingery into his hand. He had done the same for Tatsuya, helped him put it into his book, and told him he would have a book of feathers himself someday, that he would teach him how to use the biggest falcons. The boy had never gotten that chance.

He said nothing else as she filled the grave, patting the soil down after she was done, and went to stand when she did. She wiped at her eyes, again, as if she was embarrassed for crying. “Do you- do, um- do you happen to know how to, uh, get a, new one?” she asked, turning pink, and it was definitely embarrassment in her voice that time. “He was…sort of a gift.”

“I can show you how to catch one,” he blurted out before he could stop himself, flushing when he realized his own over-eagerness. He just wanted to do one thing, he thought, one thing for someone that resulted in the other person being happy rather than miserable.

Thankfully, she only stared at him with wide eyes. “Really? Thank you! I- and, oh, I’ve had no manners, I’ve completely forgotten to introduce myself.” Flushing, she smoothed out her yukata and bowed respectfully, jumping when she accidentally jabbed herself in the thigh with the spade. “I’m Kurama Nikusui. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Of course. I…” He hesitated, for a moment, wishing suddenly that he didn’t have to use his name, knowing it might make her nervous, but he’d never been afraid to say his name before and he refused to start now. “I’m Uchiha Madara.”

Her head jerked up with a wide-eyed, startled gaze, and he winced, preparing himself for something worse. “You are? You’re him? Oh, I-” She started fidgeting, eyes still round as dinner plates. “I can’t believe it’s you. I, uh, wanted to meet you for a while, and, I just wanted to say, I- uhh…really…admire you! Not in a weird way- I don’t- I don’t like men like that- I mean. You’re just, um, very strong, and skilled, with genjutsu, well, obviously with everything, but- I’ll just, I’ll just stop there.”

She was beet red by now, but he had no room to talk, since he could feel heat creeping up his ears. He didn’t think he had ever encountered…that reaction before. Someone admiring him. For…whatever reason. He hadn’t exactly done much that was admirable.

“Uh…thank you.”

They both stared at the ground for a minute, and glanced at each other, and she opened her mouth to try and alleviate the awkwardness before she suddenly froze, staring at something above his eyes.

Her mouth twitched. Her eyes abruptly looked a bit watery again, and he tensed, thinking he had caused it somehow, before she burst into raucous laughter, staring at the top of his head as her face reddened. Flabbergasted, he stared at her in mute shock, wondering at the sudden change.

“Y-y-y-y-” She tried to get out, covering her mouth with her sleeve. “Y, your head.”

She pointed at the top of his head. Confused, Madara reached up with one hand and paused when he felt something soft and small wriggling in his hair.

“Fumio,” he said with a scowl, wrapping his hand around it and pulling it down. A much too-fat little yellow canary stared up at him with puppy-dog eyes. “You knew I had a meeting today.”

Fumio blinked at him, looking incredibly sad, and he groaned. Nikusui smiled at him from behind her sleeve, speaking through the occasional chuckle.

“Do they do that a lot?”

“It’s usually fine,” he grumbled, poking the bird’s head with his thumb and drawing an indignant cheep from him. “But they know they can’t come when I’m supposed to meet someone. He has no manners.” The canary let out a very exaggerated sad whine.

He returned it to his hair and ignored the happy cheeping noise it made just before burrowing in so deep it disappeared. “Well. How about- ah- we meet some time, eh, tomorrow? It shouldn’t take long to find you a new bird.”

Nikusui beamed at him. “We can meet by that fountain, the one where they hold the farmer’s markets,” she suggested, and added on, almost as if it was an afterthought, “You do know where that is, right? I just figured so.”

“Well, yes. Why?”

“Well- you just look like you’d know where the farmer’s market usually is, is all. But- yes, we can meet there! Do you have anything to do early morning?”

Madara paused, hesitated, thought of the open invitation Hashirama had given him some point the earlier week- how he was more than welcome to come to the budget meeting held with the Hokage and his advisors- how he was sure they would eye him dryly when he arrived, Tobirama and a Senju and a Hyuuga and a Nara- and he said, “No, I don’t.”


End file.
